AIBU to not understand how "school refusers" are a thing?

[Idontunderstandmodernlife]

There seems to be a lot of parents that have children that they simply can't get to go to school no matter what they do - these children are often called "school refusers". Parents say they have done absolutely everything to get their child into school but nothing works.

I hate to be that "in my day" person but I simply don't get where these "school refusers" have come from because they simply didn't exist a decade or 15 years ago. Kids just went to school. I never knew of a child that simply didn't turn up most of the time when I was in school? now there seems to be one in every class

What has changed that parents are now finding it impossible to get their child to school? Have schools got that much worse? are parents more lenient? are children more forceful? has children's mental health declined? what is it?

I forgot about my younger brother, born in the early 60s. He never wanted to go to school. My father took us to primary school on the way to work. My father held one of my brother’s hands, while I held the other and we dragged him to school. If we let go of him, he turned round and ran off back home. He often faked stomach aches to skive off.

He got into my grammar school. He told my parents, he was leaving the Xmas of his year 11, as he was 16 and legally could leave. It was all my parents could do to get him to stay on until the summer and do his O levels. He had no interest in A levels or university. He did an apprenticeship, then developed paranoid schizophrenia in his early 20s. He’s never been the same since, nor ever worked!

I never knew why he didn’t want to go to school, other than he wanted to play at home all the time. However dragging him to school achieved nothing in the long run, other than he learnt to read - he’s spent his life reading sci-fi and playing computer games!

Depends how it's managed. District the child by forcing them against their will into an environment that is traumatic then yes the impact later in life will be massive if they live that long.

Meeting their needs and not causing further trauma is likely to result.in the best outcome for adult life.

Nothing.

my dd was at a private school when she started school refusing.

school were extremely sympathetic and she was given access to a small room to go and be in between lessons/if she felt she couldn’t go.

eventually she stopped going in, but went in for year 12 exams. She got four a stars.

no fines and school were incredibly helpful

Blah blah blah

What do you actually think happens to children that are struggling in schools
The reasons many many children end up classed as SR is down to unmet needs.
If you can force families of SEN children into no option but to home Ed due to lack of appropriate support for years this means that those children will be tables as failed to achieve due to home Ed. The irony is the failure is due to LA and schools not provided adequate support or appropriate education..
The craziest thing is my child who attend school wouldn't have learnt any less if they had never stepped foot through the door. They would however have been less traumatized and damage.
Because we literally got off rolled and forced to home Ed. We will.be not impacting their success data. The sad thing is had we opted to home ed from day one we would have had so.much more gains

Over 20 years ago, I was doing secretarial work for a child & adolescent psychiatrist and there were definitely school refusers then.

And in year 13?

Most people can just self study the school material? What's the need for school then if people can pick it up and learn it themselves (which is obviously very commendable)

My son is 19 and school refusing began when he was in nursery he would complain of headaches stomach aches, leg pain, eye pain you name it he had it and this continued all the way until he was 13 when I could not physically get him into school
I was pushed, slapped tripped up screamed at and begged screaming begging me please not to make him go in
I was told we had to get him in we had no choice I was threatened with fines he didn't care I was made to change his school it didn't change anything and then we moved house and the new education department sat down with us and recommend home schooling for him and it was brilliant
At the age of 18 my son was diagnosed with ADHD autism Pda
I think school is very important im not a parent that thinks that school doesn't matter my eldest never had an issue with school went to uni and then did a masters no issue with him
Some kids have issues that makes them afraid or worried about school
I honestly believe if I had carried on forcing my child I may not have him now as his mental health declined so badly I feared walking into his room not knowing what I would find.
School is not for everyone.

A potential confounder here is WHY children can’t attend school. So - while a lot of these students may then manage further education, esp if there are a lot of accommodations, they may fail to enter the workplace successfully.

Lots of anecdotes here about adults who were school refusers and then managed 3 degrees but less about how many are working and successfully holding down a job. Be interesting to do a poll 😀

Yeah so in the 90s I knew of at least three loosely resembling your unnecesarily derisive description; one in my year, two were younger siblings of two other pupils in my year. The younger two ended up in pupil referral units eventually. School just didn’t work for them, or our school, I don't know. They weren't just hanging round McDonald's or something though. One I know absolutely flourished in a different learning environment. It was what he needed. Or school/our school was what he didn't need. The girl did very well too, and she attended because she was allowed to wear makeup there - not allowed at school. It was a very good school, and one of the older sisters of those two now holds several Oxbridge qualifications, and thrived at school, so you can't blame the parents.

I never knew what happened to the girl in my own year. She probably was in a handful of times a year from Yr 7-11.

There absolutely were school refuses 20 years ago. My youngest son was one.

You couldn’t even write this one response without getting “all defensive”

You could have just run that through ChatGPT instead of starting a thread and making yourself look an absolute fucking tit.

You didn't learn much at school if you managed to attend. My daughter struggled to attend secondary school but is not pig ignorant like you.

Yep, my son did this too.

DD2 (17) loves working and earning money, deals with many difficult customers with aplomb and has been extremely reliable, never missing a single shift. It really was just (secondary) school that was the problem.

I did well at school and have had a very good career as a high earning professional. I don't think I would do well in secondary school now, I'd be a nervous wreck with the behavioural systems and would certainly flounder with all the heavy homework demands on my time out of school.

I'm interested in what you would do if your 14 year old son, physically bigger and stronger than you, refused to get out of bed to go to school.

Schools had masks until spring of 2022.

Covid interrupted 3 academic years, 19/20, 20/21 and 21/22.
There were lots of restrictions around right up to about April of 2022.

They dropped out of school. I was one of them

I am 46 and I refused school. I was not catered to or supported and basically left to it.

I thought that before I had three weeks of attempted school refusal by my 8 yo DD. She showed real strength - nearly dislocated her shoulder (she’s Hypermobile) some days holding on to the school door when I would try to drag / push / carry her through it. In the end I would wait until the gates closed and just leave her in view of the school office in the playground, she would eventually get taken in by the SEND assistant for ten mins of Lego then go calmly into class but missed a bit of the first lesson. I personally felt shamed by other parents and some of the teachers in the playground for physically trying to get her in the door and trying to be as firm and authoritative as possible to make it clear it was not a choice, a double standard as bet I’d be equally judged by the same people if I just gave up and let her run out the school gates. I left the playground every day in tears.

We were lucky we figured out the root problems including an ND / anxiety angle and had a school willing to help suggest and try different solutions. Not all of them do it would seem from talking to friends and colleagues. She’s fine now but I sometimes wonder if it will happen again at secondary.

I feel the OP asked some good questions on why this is happening for so many and there are different experiences and reasons helpfully shared in this thread. In my view if more school staff had been around to shepherd the kids in calmly but firmly I honestly think the refusal would not have started. I also think the expectations set on kids to achieve at primary are so high now and they feel it. I just remember having lots of fun and then knuckling down at secondary!

Nope, doesn't work...
Bigger, stronger son, used to barricade himself in his bedroom sometimes...

Of course you were judging OP. Please don’t pretend otherwise.

If you were genuinely interested in getting to the truth of school refusal, MN is not a place you’d start. You especially wouldn’t choose to post in AIBU…too many uninformed opinions chiming in.

And if you’d done any research at all your opening post would have read quite differently. So you were just stirring.

I had two whole terms when I was mostly off school - first at about eight when we had moved home and I started a new school. I didn’t cope with the change well. It presented as a lot of ear aches - I even had an op - but I suppose it really was school refusal. The next term I just went back. I then thrived and did extremely well in primary but the transition to secondary was again very upsetting and difficult.

By the summer term of year 7 I was again mostly off with leg pain. I did feel the pain and to be honest I’ve always had bad flat feet but also I wasn’t coping. I had my leg in plaster and lay on the sofa most of the summer term, watched telly and learned a huge amount from it. The World At War was my schoolroom. Plus I listened to news radio phone-ins and watched the news and soaked it all up. School sent books home to make up homework. The next term I went back. I probably had more sickies than others but I made it through to uni and the world of work and can’t think when I’ve been off now.

My parents did suspect I was putting it on. I felt terribly guilty about it - the worry I put them through. I’ve gone on to be reasonably high achieving in life but I suppose it’s because I found my niche.

Was I neurodivergent? We didn’t know the word then. I’ve never been diagnosed with anything but I think I have traits. The fact is I did pretty well in exams without attending lessons. I think I needed the down time and I actually learned better from the telly than some boring teacher!

I never even knew school refusal was an option back in the 90s/2000s-and I was depressed/anxious as well. Realising I didn't have to go would've been heaven for me. Just wasn't an option though. I wouldn't do it to my parents (and my mum's a pushover) and would be terrified of getting in trouble. Kids aren't scared of being told off now-not that they would be I mean hell they've even given it a new name so the kid doesn't have to have any bad feelings about it-"emotionally based school avoidance" 🙄

How have things turned out of you? Found you thrived later outside the school environment?

It may have a new name but is not a walk in the park.
It is so unbelievably hard on the whole family. The child isn't choosing not to go they literally can't and this means they aren't happy not to go. They suffer worry, guilt and feelings of failure because they can't go.
They miss out on all the nice things..like seeing friends, school.trips,.leavers hoodies,.prom.etc.

Quite frankly if you managed to go your difficulty was minor compared to my those who cant